0 Let's Shag Ass
1 Director
Wes Anderson is no stranger to anyone interested in photography or fine art. It has won a total of seven Oscar nominations, of which "The Grand Budapest Hotel" won the Academy Award for Best Picture, Director and Best Original Screenplay that year. Weiss's personal style of films is strong and temperamental with its bright colors and symmetrical composition, narratives that are mostly childish and deviant, recurring cast members and occasional male voice narrations, and an excellent soundtrack. Unique, as long as you watch any one, and then watch other Wechsler films, you can clearly identify his works from his personal style.
It is worth mentioning that when we use color to convey our mood, it is nothing more than expressing sadness and melancholy in a cool tone, or we think that orange and yellow itself symbolize brightness and joy, but Wes uses color to bring people impression, conveying a completely different emotion.
In "Genius", the Tenenbaum family has more or less grotesque personalities and mental trauma or illness, but the tone of the whole film is bright and warm like the sitcom version, which is easy for the audience to ignore at first. Psychological problems of the protagonists. It happens to be this sense of contrast of sensual emotions that wraps Wes Anderson's film with a bright film. After piercing it, all that flows out is a candy-like fairy tale world with its own black humor and Or characters from childhood trauma, or war, or fighting to the death.
They are like Mr. Gustave in "The Grand Budapest Hotel", who suddenly utters a swear word in serious moments, which is very different from the usual suave and refined image;
Another example is Margot Tenenbaum, in the seemingly monotonous life for decades, hiding in a small corner of the bathtub, rolling in the inner world with the desire for rebellion and freedom;
Or maybe Max Fischer, the precocious failed college boy in "Youth and Youth," swears on a date.
The core of Webster's films is to live in a playful world in an absurd world.
2 Narrative
Undoubtedly, "The Genius Family" is still about the familiar family plot of Weiss, a genius family that is talked about with great relish, with three children each having their own strengths: the eldest son, Chas, is good at finance, and the second daughter, Margot, has become a famous playwright since childhood. , while the youngest son Richie is a rising star in the tennis world. At the age of seventeen, he changed his career to become a racing driver and also won the championship for three consecutive years. It is in such a family that seems to be well-mannered and young and promising, there are actually no small roots and hidden dangers.
The main problem lies with the head of the family, the film's protagonist, Royal Tenenbaum.
He was cynical, and at the age of forty-five suddenly announced his separation from his wife and moved into a hotel, without explaining why he did so. His wife, Etheline, raised three children by herself, and so much care was poured into them, which made the three children's characters gradually become naive, withdrawn or sensitive.
After explaining all the background of the story at the beginning in less than ten minutes, using a few shots to create a complete and vivid character image, and the cast and crew explained everything, immediately appeared on the screen. "Chapter 1" directly gives the audience information: the story has entered the feature film, and the good show has just begun.
In order to feel the warmth of the family again, Royal pretended to have stomach cancer and asked to return to the old house and live with his family as the trigger point. A series of reunions, conflicts, quarrels and reconciliation followed one after another. In the intervention of the role of the "outsider", like a pool of stagnant water, there was finally a branch stirred on the foam, and the vitality of the home was revived.
An ideal family will not be full of complete reunion and happiness. Those throbbing, regrets and obsessions hidden under the growing estrangement, which have been quietly buried for a long time, are the childhood memories after the suicide attempt. Next to the sleeping bag in the tent, he was reawakened one by one in an accidental car accident that did not cause too many casualties. Wrapping up the film with a fairytale ending, Royal is the trigger, and ultimately a funeral that brings the family back together again.
In terms of narrative, the director chose the common narrative technique of chronological sequence + interlude. But the interlude is not quite satisfactory. When telling about Margot's past, the director used Margot's spouse to find the detective. He opened the investigation report and explained it to the audience, like another nested in the novel. Miniature novel story. Supplemented by the occasional male voice narration, watching Wechsler's films, you can often feel the moving feeling of his narration, especially the interlude.
The small details of some of Webster's narrative in the film are also worth noting. In "Genius" and "The Grand Budapest Hotel", there are "chapters" like this.
The next second after the cutscene is the shot of Royal entering the hotel lobby as described here and asking where the encyclopedia is.
This chapter-by-chapter narrative, similar to the format in which scripts are embedded in a film, makes the film more logical and the viewer looks more articulate. It's also a cute little highlight in Webster's films.
3 roles
Too many characters in Wes Anderson's films have serious or minor psychological problems, most of them tied to childhood experiences. Childhood, an unhappy and premature childhood, left indelible wounds on everyone.
Take Chas as an example, because his wife was killed in an accident, and because of a bullet in his father's childhood game, Chas's mind has always stayed in childhood. He chooses not to face the world when he grows up, and he is also rigorously training his two children. In fact, he gives him the big care that his father originally gave him, and gives him a more neurotic way. children.
Interestingly enough, the two children with high hopes ended up playing with their cynical grandfather, whom their father hated.
The Dalmatian mice that Ches raised as a child are used throughout the film. Perhaps it symbolized the genius side of Ches as a child, but it also became his shackles. When Royal returned home and Ches had a stiff and awkward relationship with him, his mice often lingered in front of Royal's sickbed, implying that Ches was still longing for the rare fatherly love of childhood.
In the end, when he choked and said the phrase "I've had a rough year, Dad" to his father, he must have been touched after seeing his father's efforts to compensate him and his family. Accept the fact that you express your emotions and learn to grow up.
4 Art Design
Since we talk about Wes Anderson's films, we must mention the art design in his films.
Production Design of "Genius", David Wasco, who was responsible for the art design of "Pulp Fiction", "La La Land", "Kill Bill" and "Reservoir Dogs", won the first place with "La La Land" Best Art Direction at the 89th Academy Awards. The set design was by Sandy Reynolds-Wasco.
As the number of films shot increased, Webster gradually established an aesthetic style of high saturation (Saturation), multi-use primary colors (Hue), and bright (Brightness), and if there were low brightness in his films The scene can make the audience clearly feel the emotional change brought about by the repressed environment.
Use bright tones to form sharp contrasts, and make corresponding adjustments according to the director's style and plot needs. In "Genius", we can see the uniqueness of color selection and scene design, which is reflected through one's room a person's personality.
The first is Ches's room, which adopts the color combination of red + white + gray and white checkered bricks, which has a stable and elegant taste.
In order to meet the needs of Ches' work, a work table with a coffee machine, a computer, a lamp and a telephone is placed in the center of the room by the window. The gray color echoes the suit on Ches's body.
And the four-story data rack against the wall that looks taller than Little Ches. This series of furniture and decoration styles, which should not have appeared in childhood, has become ubiquitous in Ches's room, showing the precocious side of Ches as a child.
Next is daughter Margot's room. Margot's personality is withdrawn and eccentric, and the ancient heads exuding a strong sense of history on the door made a small foreshadowing for her and her brother to go camping in the museum later. Three stickers saying "Do not disturb", "Keep the door closed" and "Do not enter", as well as numerous keyholes and a red lock on the door, symbolize Margot's inner closure, and it is not difficult to explain why she later Lock yourself in the bathroom all day smoking and watching TV.
The choice of furniture and interior decoration are also very retro. In the background of the symmetrical composition, the left and right wall decorations are different, and the lamp on the left is larger than the candle and radio on the right, adding a sense of movement to the sense of order. The vinyl machine is placed by the bed, and Margot should often listen to songs to find writing inspiration and release his inner emotions.
The decoration of the library is also quite nice. The composition of the rule of thirds, Margot is on the far left, and the two squares on the right are books.
Finally came to Richie's room. Compared with her brothers and sisters, Richie's room uses brighter and bolder colors, and uses contrasting colors more frequently, mainly involving colors such as brown, cyan, indigo and matcha green - Richie is also the one who has been loved the most by Royal since childhood. One, among the three children, is the most like an ordinary child at this age.
There is Richie's soul painting on the wall, and a group photo with his father and a trophy, also implies that the relationship between father and son is much more harmonious than the other two. There are exquisite trophies on the closet, except for several of the villains above, none of them are duplicates.
The two-color round tennis ball on the ground makes the whole picture lively.
The carpet pattern adopts a very bold blue-green contrasting color, and the curved lines make the whole room full of childlike interest from head to toe.
The walls of the ballroom are covered with sisters painted by Rickie, and the emotional relationship between the two is self-evident in the opening five minutes of the film.
In addition to the sets and colors, the costumes of the characters are also a good reflection of their personality differences.
It is still the beginning of the film. When confronted with his father, the three children wore striped polo shirts, suits and baseball uniforms respectively, corresponding to the identities of the three playwrights, financiers and golfers. And this kind of dressing style has changed more or less after growing up, especially the eldest brother Ches, who played the role of Ben Stiller when he grew up, has two sportswear in the whole film, and the styles are exactly the same, except for his father's funeral. I wore black on top, and the rest of the time was red. As I got older, I became more and more childish.
The service of this film is mainly from the hands of Karen Patch and Naomi Donne. Clothing design adheres to Wechsler's style of uniform color throughout the body, such as red, yellow or purple. The red round hats worn by the crew in "Life in the Water", the red vehicle in "Crossing Darjeeling", Max's red hat in "Youth and Young" and Ches's consistent red tracksuit and curls, and the very boyish in his bedroom The decorations and stickers on the wall, these characters' clothing and accessories all have the element of red, and they are also symbols of their stagnation in the torrent of the times and the need to solve different problems in their growth.
And Margot's punk dressing style when he grew up - a long fur coat, a Hermes Birkin bag, a blue dress, shoulder-length short hair with a red hairpin, plus a smoky feeling that suddenly increased her uninhibited feeling The makeup beautifully brings out her solitary and eccentric temperament, and it has become a model for fashion that many brands have been imitating in recent years.
5 soundtrack
Wes Anderson's soundtrack selection is actually quite old school, with a lot of music from the sixties. In "Genius", "Hey Jude" and "These Days" are the finishing touches to the storyline.
These days I sit on corner stones
And count the time in quarter tones to ten
Please don't confront me with my failures
I had not forgotten them
In Nico's singing, the sweetheart who had been away for a long time when he was young came from not far away, the breeze was blowing, and the hair was fluttering. This just right emotion was created by the soundtrack to create a subtle and thick atmosphere.
Wes Anderson also used classical music in "Genius". For example, when Eli and Richie met, the background music when they talked was Satie's "Gymnopedie Nr.1", used here, there is a kind of classical music unique. There is a sense of order, which forms a great contrast and dramatic tension with a series of behaviors such as Eli taking drugs and hitting people with his car.
Of course, there is also the lively Ravel's String Quartet, and the use of banjo makes the already bright picture more fresh and pleasant.
6 lenses
Margot was walking towards the camera when he appeared on the scene, threw the cigarette butt in his hand to the right of the frame, and the camera panned.
Eli came from the right and looked left like Margot after entering the painting. The two walked to the corner, stood still, and were symmetrical in the picture.
And as Eli begins to speak, the camera gradually moves behind Margot, over his shoulders for a close-up shot of Eli speaking:
When Margot speaks, the camera turns to Margot; when Eli begins to speak, the camera turns back to Eli.
This shot got rid of the fixed program of medium shot + close-up of two sides of ordinary dialogue shooting, and made the whole picture come alive through the panning of the same camera. As long as the camera is moving, the audience can follow the prompts of the camera very well, and listen to the dialogue between the two parties as a participant. The gradually advancing camera also makes the picture more interesting. It is a Wei-style humor outside the script. .
The same lens expression can also be found in The Grand Budapest Hotel. In the shot of taking a shower, the same camera position has also been greatly moved, from the guest at one end to the hotel owner at the other end, so that the audience can feel a stronger sense of dialogue.
The scene where Rickie shaves in the bathroom uses a jump cut editing technique to show that doing one thing takes a long time in a short time, which not only shows Richie's restless mood, but also makes the narrative more compact.
Conclusion Values
Contrary to its bright tones, the core idea conveyed by "Genius" is actually more depressing and sad. One of the most impressive episodes is that when Richie found out that her long-cherished sister Margot had a very rich love story, she shaved her beard and cut her wrists to commit suicide in the bathroom. The red color on his hands gradually spread, and his breathing stagnated at that moment. Webster tries to convey a message to the audience through high saturation and lightness tones, orderly composition and jokes in serious occasions, that is, in the face of the naked truth of life, even if Margot and Richie can't be together in the end, even if Royal died with only Chas by his side - even if we can't change many established facts, at least life has left us with a bright and bright shell, room for gags, and a song when Margot walks towards Richie "These Days". Modecai, a symbol of childhood glory, fell back on his shoulders after being released by the still young Rickie. I think this may also herald a turning point in The Tenenbaums' relationship.
Yes, life will continue, and life is often a mess, but the surface work still has to be done - at least, from increasing the saturation and brightness of the background color, wrapping the mess in colorful and colorful candy paper to make it On the surface it doesn't look that bad to start .
-End of full text-
View more about The Royal Tenenbaums reviews
